Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

“If you don’t want people using your secret little rooms for nefarious purposes, you shouldn’t make them this easy to find,” I said. Then I paused. “Or maybe they’re not just here for spying on guests. Quentin, remember when you showed me how to navigate the servants’ passages at Shadowed Hills?”


Quentin blinked as understanding dawned. “Give me a second,” he said, and moved to the back of the antechamber.

Tybalt watched him go before turning his frown on me, clearly puzzled. “Would you care to explain?”

“Most knowes—ones that don’t belong to the Court of Cats—are built to suit the nobles who own them. Even the good nobles want their servants to be invisible, although most don’t take it as literally as Riordan here. Service is supposed to be quiet, efficient, and only noticed when something goes wrong. So they hide little passages and back routes through the knowes, to make it possible for their servants to stay out of sight.”

“Ah.” Tybalt frowned. “The Divided Courts are sometimes more alien to me than I like to admit.”

“If it helps at all, I think they tend to feel the same way about the Court of Cats.”

Tybalt shook his head, still frowning. “I am not sure it helps anything to know that we are all strangers to one another.”

“Got it!” Quentin’s triumphant whisper stopped me before I could say anything I’d regret later. I turned to see him standing in front of a narrow open rectangle in what had seemed to be a solid wall only moments before. He was grinning, visibly pleased with himself—as well he should be. “She uses a pressure code to keep the doors closed. It’s pretty clever, but it’s also pretty common. I’ve seen it in a bunch of knowes.”

“My little cat burglar,” I said dryly. “How proud your parents must be.”

His grin, if anything, brightened. “I’d bet you a dollar that you’re right.”

“As long as it’s not a Canadian dollar, you’re on.” I started toward the opening. “Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

“Is the answer ever ‘unending pain and a suffering beyond imagination’?” asked Tybalt. He still followed me. Either his sense of self-preservation was weakening, or he was confident that whatever might be lurking up ahead would eat the rest of us first.

“Sometimes,” said Quentin. “Other times, it’s a pantry.”

I smothered my laughter behind my hand as I stepped through the door Quentin had managed to open in the wall, gesturing for the others to wait. They did, Quentin calmly, and Tybalt with obvious annoyance. At least he was listening to me. That was going to be essential if we were going to get out of this with everyone still breathing.

The floor on the other side of the wall was as plain as the antechamber behind me. I still stepped carefully, testing the wood with my toes before moving forward. If there were any booby-traps, they were the kind that needed more than a little weight to trigger them.

The servant’s hall was dark, lacking the glowing spheres that dotted the hallway outside. I paused, then dug the Luidaeg’s Chelsea-chaser out of my pocket. Its glow brightened as I brought it into the open, chasing back the worst of the shadows. It was in its neutral state, glowing like a handful of captive starlight…but it hadn’t been this bright since it was first activated. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I had to hope it was a sign that Chelsea had been here at least once, and might be here again.

Finally, I closed my eyes, let my mouth drop open, and breathed in. Nothing. The only magic I smelled was my own, cut grass and copper, underscored with the whisper of frozen wind across lonely moors. The Luidaeg’s charm was making its presence known. Beyond that, we were alone. “Come on,” I said, opening my eyes. “The coast is clear.”

Tybalt and Quentin stepped through the wall, Quentin pausing to slide the panel back into place and tap his fingers against the “hinge” in a rapid, elaborate pattern of strokes and beats. When he pulled his hands away, the panel remained set firmly into the wall.

“Nice trick,” I said.